Hardcover
1937 · New York
by Hopkins, Arthur
New York: The Book League of America, Inc.. Near Fine in Very Good dj. 1937. Book Club Edition. Hardcover. [good solid copy with just a touch of soiling to the bottom edges of the covers; the jacket is modestly edgeworn, with a 1.5" closed tear at top of front panel]. A curious sort of semi-memoir by the noted American theatrical producer/director and occasional playwright, who produced and/or directed more than eighty Broadway plays between 1912 and 1948, among them "What Price Glory," "Anna Christie," "The Petrified Forest," and "The Magnificent Yankee." The book is presented "in the form of a series of letters to a friendless boy, suffering in a hospital from an incurable disease," in which the author "reveals, in an informal, unaffected style, what he has done and seen and what he thinks about life." Backgrounding all this philosophizing is a wealth of anecdotal material about his life in the theatre, including stories about John Barrymore, Theodore Roosevelt, David Belasco, Minnie Madern Fiske and others, as well as "an analysis of acting technique which must surely live as a classic." . (Inventory #: 26753)